Nope, no beard.
I've seen some pea combs that are the lumpy bumpy thing you mention. My favorite pea combs are three tidy little rows of bumps, with the middle one a little higher than the rest, so they look nicely organized and not random. I don't have any good pictures of them right now. My...
A hen with newly-hatched chicks will usually stay on the nest for a bit before she comes out with the chicks. Some hens wait a few hours, some hens wait a few days.
If the chicks had actually hatched underneath her, they would need that time to dry off and fluff up and get ready to walk around...
In that case, the chick could grow up to be silver with some white (basically, a white chicken). Or the chick could have a light shade of gold with some white (similar colors to a Buff Laced Polish, but not the actual "laced" pattern.)
It should be fun to see what colors of chicks you get!
I can't quite tell what you are asking.
If you are asking, would Polish Bantams be a good choice as chicks? The answer is probably yes.
If you are asking, if you get some kind of chicks, should you also get adult Polish Bantams to keep the Silkie company while the chicks are young? The answer...
If that rooster is the father, then the mother could be your Chocolate Orpington or your Black Star (chick gets the genes to be all-black from the mother, then the gene Dominant White from the father will turn all that black into white.)
Or if the father has the Silver gene, the mother could be...
Standard Polish might be an option as well. They are still pretty small, even when they are not actually bantams. And in the USA where I am, it is much easier to find Polish standards than bantams.
Of course Polish are handicapped by their crests, which make it hard for them to see. This could...
I am fond of pea combs. Some of the small/smooth pea or walnut combs can look fairly similar to a dubbed bird, at least at first glance. I have not been close to a dubbed bird in person to check fine details.
For example, here are three photos of the head one bird:
She was a Red Shouldered...
If the apparently-barred chick is male, I think that is the most likely explanation (testable by breeding any maybe-barred hens to a black rooster with no barring, and see if you get any sons with obvious barring.)
If the apparently-barred chick is female, and turns out to actually have...
If what you really want is chicks that are pure for the Wheaten gene (E^Wh), then you should be able to get some in the second generation. For that, it does not really matter whether Duckwing is dominant over Wheaten or vice versa.
Cross the Wheaten and the Duckwing, and you've got chicks that...
Obviously botulism is a danger to people or chickens of all ages, but honey is not considered a particular risk factor for most people after they are past infancy. Chickens grow up much faster than humans, so their digestive system might mature more quickly too. So there might be an actual...
I do not know if it is possible to have a chicken with both of these traits at the same time.
I would expect that the rose comb pushes the crest back, so it can lay backward but not forward (example: some Silkies.) But I do not know if that must happen, or if you could breed for a...
Sometimes feathers just do get their pigment in weird ways. For example, some kinds of dietary deficiencies or excesses can cause weird coloring.
But this one still LOOKS like barring.
I'll look forward to seeing the results!
I've read of a few cases when hens stored sperm for longer than a...
Not true for mixed breed chickens. Earlobe color does not predict egg color.
Sort-of true for purebred chickens, because the earlobe color can help you figure out what breed the chicken is, and once you know the breed you also know what egg color they will lay.
There are a lot of breeds with...
I agree. That does look like barring. I can't be sure whether it IS barring, but it definitely LOOKS like barring.
I don't know where the barring came from, but I do know how to be sure of what it is: test-mate the bird to see what you get in the chicks. Mating with a black chicken will give...
Yes, it's easy to get chicken recipes in a search!
That is why I tried putting "poultry" in my search. It seems to help get studies on the live creatures, instead of recipes :D
Thank you for updating, and for giving so many details!
It is very nice to know the final outcome, and what things you did that helped or might have helped👍